Demons and Horrors and Gods, Oh My!
I’ve been wondering what the relationship is between Demons, Summoned Horrors and Forgotten Gods (if any).
Are they entirely separate phenomena? Are they different names for the same entity at a different stage in its life cycle : Summoned Horrors being the first instar to the Demon’s nymph of the Forgotten Gods’… unknowable metaphorical insect? Or are Forgotten Gods also worshiped by Demons, and Summoned Horrors manifestations of Forgotten Gods?
Ultimately, it’s up to your game, but in my mind, it can’t be a coincidence that all three of these things exist.
Sean Nittner that was more or less my thinking, too. I rather love the idea that they’re parts of a greater whole.
Is it just a coincidence that ginkgo trees and spiders and worms and elephants and whales and birds all exist? I would think that the answer is much the same for Demons, Leviathans, and the multitude of Summoned Horrors. Some core element, some sort of magical DNA, links them all but they have each undergone their own twisted magical evolutionary path to become what they are now.
Due to the elemental element of demons, I like to treat them like Sidhe, Fairies, Djinn, Trolls, and Grey Aliens. As a somewhat vague supernatural Other with an alien nature, somewhat consistent characteristics, with perspectives, morality and values vastly different than our own, not necessarily evil but always dangerous, and responsible for anything from mysterious disappearances, lucky streaks to the common cold . It’s a mythological niche that exists in some form across human cultures, it’s the things howling in the night, behind the sky, under the waves and crawling in mouse holes. The elusive Other behind the veil of reality, in the corners of the map labeled “There be Dragons” or “Yonder lies Tycharos”.
However, I feel that the Demons in Blades belong to the world, regardless of whether humanity accepts it. For they are beings of the earth, of the natural world, they represent the wild untamed places, the seas, the skies and the mountains. Demons are the stuff of life, composed of living blood and they have as much right to walk the land as humans do, if not more so.
Maybe summoned horrors are like demons but without the stable anchor of immortality fed by the living blood. Maybe they are things from other worlds or between worlds, and are not met to exist for long here, but that asks the question of why they would take the form of recognisable if otherworldy roaches at times, or the shape of raging storms.
The Forgotten Gods are interesting, some seem to be like human nature folded and hammered into a single brilliant lance, others are the very things of impossibility, some still are inhumane but dreadfully representative of the world. Maybe some really were people, maybe it’s something a powerful demon invented for control of us. Maybe they are demons of incorporeal form or great sleep. Maybe the Gods are the thoughts and blood sloshing in our hearts, in all of our hearts with a common resonating beat. Who can say, there are so many wonderful and terrible things out there.
I’ve always considered the Forgotten Gods to be the ghosts of the old Gods before the cataclysm. Whatever it was, however it happened, the devastation which shattered the sun and destroyed the Gates of the Dead also killed the Gods but because the Gates were destroyed, they returned as Ghosts.
Honestly, I play the Forgotten Gods as changed or shifted versions of pre-cataclysm gods. I don’t just Bizarro them, but instead think of a god concept like say a god of Justice and think what would seem just to him in this new and slightly twisted world? And then I think, how has he become more Lovecraftian and beyond what he once was?
Demons for me, are just what it says on the tin. They’re demons. Beings from outside our or rather the Blades universe and they exist to embody the human condition. The Id running wild. Only with elemental power and no concept of what it means to be human, that is except for knowing just where to put pressure to make those strange flesh marionettes dance.
Horrors for me, come in a few types.
Horrors can be things of this world that have been twisted. Twisted, by the Cataclysm, twisted by contact with the vast and unknowable gods, twisted by demons for fun or profit. The basic flora and fauna of the world out in the Deathlands is mostly these. Or they can be things from other worlds or other times, things that no longer exist or shouldn’t exist for a long while yet. Either of these types I count as burning fuses. They’re dying and burning up, and looking to take something else with them.
And the last is the most dangerous, the supernatural, that has been shifted or touched by more powerful supernatural beings. A ghost that’s demon touched. Yep. A demon that has been bound into service of a forgotten god. Yep. Remains left over from some battle of gods or monsters that has taken on a horrible new life of its own. Yep.